She puts her hand out, but the goose does not snap today. She knows it’s the end, thinks Rosalind. She is just waiting now.
Without any more thought she throws the bag over the goose’s head. The goose flaps around within the bag, and Rosalind feels the shape of her head through the hessian. With a hammer she hits the head, and the goose releases a faint, involuntary squawk but still squirms within. Rosalind hits again twice, harder this time. She has never killed an animal before. She saw her grandmother use an ax on the birds, but she could not bear to kill that way, with such bloody violence. She watched her grandmother kill, then pluck and chop and stuff, and as a child, Rosalind never once considered that she might one day experience it, too.
She sits back on her haunches and hugs her knees to stare at the sack, thinking back to the miracle eggs. The sight of the suddenly lifeless bird within makes her feel ill, but mostly sad.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers, and several tears escape.
Rosalind puts one hand on her heart and the other on the sack to feel the contents that are still warm, before realizing what she is doing. She can’t afford to attach herself to dead things.
She picks up the bag and heads back to the house to prepare the goose for dinner.
CHAPTER 19
ERICH
For most of the morning, Erich has been clearing the rubbish from the property and depositing it near the broken houses across the road, all the while his mind on Stefano, who is working on Rosalind’s property. The clearing is not something he needs to attend to, but he likes to be near, to keep an eye on Stefano where he can. They conversed earlier over coffee. Erich advised he will return at sunrise, and they will leave shortly afterward for the station in Dresden.
At the top of the ridge above the houses, he stopped to briefly watch Stefano working. Stefano did not appear to notice him there, too focused on precision, on the task. He is careful and methodical, smoothing the mortar between each brick with gentle but firm strokes.
Stefano and Michal left earlier with a bucket, heading toward the woodland on the far side of the clearing to collect clay and dry grasses, ingredients to make a crude mortar as a temporary patch to other minor damage in the house’s brickwork.
Erich watches Rosalind carefully whenever she leaves the house. She has found reasons to walk past Stefano and to stop and talk. She seems eager to gain his attention. Normally he would think she was suspicious and keeping an eye on him, but just from the encounters he has witnessed, she seems comfortable, even curious like him. The fact she is doing this irritates him. Just the sight of her stirs animosity, the resentment in her face reminding him she knows too much.
Once finished with the clearing, he sets about removing engine parts from the car, and cleaning them. He helped his father do this many times. He could become his father, he thinks. He has much of him: he has his passion for machinery, his fascination for the way things work. He replaces the parts, then covers the car with rugs and once again with branches.
Stefano steps up to the tub near the back door to wash off the dirt.
“Rosalind has asked us both to dinner,” says Stefano.
“I can’t. I have to work tonight.”
He does not want to spend time with her if he can help it. He does not want to be near Georg.
“But you said you are not leaving till late. Perhaps you have time.”
“I should get there earlier.”
“They are working you hard it seems. You hardly sleep.”
“It is a very busy factory.”
How one lie can grow to two and two to four, thinks Erich, who must turn the conversation.
“I will be back in the morning, as promised. In the meantime I hope that you will enjoy the evening. Just be careful.”
“I sense no danger there,” says Stefano. “I believe your dislike is for other reasons. Every time I mention Rosalind’s name, it seems to upset you.”
Erich remembers the last time he and Rosalind spoke alone. Rosalind turning her back to him to be rid of him quickly. Erich is disappointed in himself that he has exposed certain feelings. He is wondering what else he has shown.
“There are a lot of things in the pasts of people who have known one another in different situations,” says Erich. “Sometimes it is better just to move on. To begin anew. We did not have a strong connection in the early years. I see no need to have one now.”
Evasiveness was one of his strengths, but he finds himself answering Stefano, not by the means of manipulation, but because he wants to.
“I think that if you can spare time before you start work, then perhaps it is a good thing, for both of you.”
And Stefano is looking at him, searchingly. The Italian is commanding and engaging even when he is saying little, even just standing there. He does not have the order, the short hair, the grooming that Erich is used to in those he looked up to, and Erich has been conditioned to distance himself from those who are different in color, in background. Yet at this moment, perhaps for the first time, he questions the motive of such a stance. He questions why Hitler had got it so wrong. The question would shatter his mother if she could read his thoughts.
“All right, I will come,” he says. “For a short time. Perhaps we must celebrate the end of the war, at least, even if it was not the outcome some of us would have hoped for.”
Erich believes his own words. They are not flippant. He must continue. It is Stefano’s company he craves, but there is another reason to be here this evening. He loathes the idea of leaving Rosalind to speak to Stefano alone any longer. She is not as guarded, less cautious. She could ruin his chances to leave with Stefano if he learns the truth. Perhaps it is best that Erich is there to observe, to make sure she says nothing.
Erich suddenly notices that Michal is still missing. He has not seen him since the earlier walk with Stefano.
“Where is the boy?”
Stefano shrugs. “He is just exploring. He will not be far way. I will go to Rosalind and let her know you will be there, too.”
1941–1942
In Berlin, shortly after they were married, Monique became a weight in Erich’s daily life, and their time together was strained. The foreign posting in the months ahead would likely change things for the better. He would hopefully be traveling often and not have to spend much time with her. He didn’t understand people like Monique, nor did he want to. They would make small talk, and he endured it at first. She was charming at functions, and Erich was the envy of many men. There had been whispers at first about her behavior, that she had been naively open to other vices, but they had quickly died down after the wedding, when people saw that she was good enough for a senior officer. She was good at acting, at playing the part of acknowledging her wrongs, should someone accidentally bring up a reference. Though Erich was not completely fooled. There was more to her than she was letting on, and, from past experience, he knew people rarely changed their beliefs.